


nil igitur mors est ad nos

by Vermin_Disciple



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, I Claudius
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Crack, Gen, Wordcount: 100-500
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-30
Updated: 2013-06-30
Packaged: 2017-12-16 17:29:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/864694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vermin_Disciple/pseuds/Vermin_Disciple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Death comes for Messalina, much to her amazement.</p>
            </blockquote>





	nil igitur mors est ad nos

**Author's Note:**

> Uh?? IDEK, guys. I just found it in my writing folder. I don’t know when I wrote it, or why, or whether it was intended to be part of something else or what. I don’t actually remember writing it at all, but presumably I did, because it was in my writing folder and it does sound like something I would write. Title is from Lucretius' _De rerum natura_ , which probably means this was written around Spring of 2007, when I took a class on Lucretius. Posted now as part of my personal and increasingly badly named [spring cleaning challenge](http://vermin-disciple.livejournal.com/225402.html).

Messalina screamed. Her body crumpled to the floor. 

A moment later she stood up and looked around, feeling more than a little dazed. It had been an extraordinarily strange day. She examined her corpse, which was bleeding inelegantly all over her elegant floor. Her mother's soft weeping sounded oddly distant. 

"I can't be dead," she said, taking a wonderful comfort in hearing her own voice, or at least at the memory of her voice. She carefully avoided glancing at her own severed throat. 

I'M AFRAID YOU ARE MISTAKEN. A dark figure had appeared beside her. Messalina didn't turn to face him, but she watched him coyly from the corner of her eye. 

"I can't be. Claudius can't do a thing like that to _me_." She smiled maliciously. "He's an idiot, but he's not capable of something like that. He _loves_ me too much for it." 

IT APPEARS THAT YOU WERE WRONG. There was an almost completely imperceptible note of resignation in his tone, as if it had been the sort of day where all the last-minute cajolers and wheedlers and whiners had been dying in droves. Mnester must have put on quite a performance.

"I'm not, and I'm not going with you," she said, arms crossed. She smiled again, using her sweetest smile, most innocent smile. It was a smile that belonged on the face of a teenage Vestal. She'd been using it since she was 15, and it had never failed to get her what she wanted. Death watched her, apparently unmoved, although it was hard to tell with him.

She moved closer to him, shivering pitifully, like a kitten left out in the rain. "It's a mistake." Her lips were trembling now. "Surely no one would mind if you just-"

IT IS OVER, MESSALINA. 

The trembling and wide-eyed innocence dropped off in an instant. "No! NO- I won't-"

As the scythe rushed past her, Messalina screamed. And then she was gone. 

The move wasn't necessary, strictly speaking, but Death had found that some people just needed a dramatic gesture. 

_Finis_


End file.
